


Better

by LaVieEnRose



Series: The One Where Justin Loses His Hearing [108]
Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Chronic Illness, Deaf Character, Disability, Domestic Fluff, Epilepsy, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-04 20:46:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18820405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaVieEnRose/pseuds/LaVieEnRose
Summary: Justin might not be the best at multitasking.





	Better

I was sprawled out on our bed with my laptop when Brian got home. He looked sexy and tired in his club clothes. **You're home early,** I said. 

He raised an eyebrow. **It's three.**

“Oh. Wow.”

**Why the fuck are you still up?**

“I was reading, I guess I lost track of time. Have you heard of peritoneal dialysis?”

He sat down next to me on the bed, a strange look on his face. **No.**

“You can do it at home. You do it every night while you sleep. It's supposed to be a little safer than hemodialysis and you don't have to go into the center all the time.”

**Justin.**

“You do have to have this small surgery to get a tube in your stomach. I don't know how he feels about surgery.”

**Justin.**

“What?”

**What the fuck is going on with your breathing?**

I shrugged, scrolling down the webpage I was reading. “It's a little rough tonight.”

**Sunshine, you sound _horrible._ Like I'm feeling very confused that you didn't die while I was gone horrible.**

**Well, I do like to surprise you.**

He sighed and put his hand on my back. **Jesus. You don't feel how hard you're working?**

 **I've told you I don't notice.** Fun fact: you can get used to it after all. 

**Do you also lack the ability to check your peak flow when I'm not here?**

**Yes, it's very confusing. All the buttons.**

**It's one button.**

**Well, I'm brain-damaged.**

**Did you take your meds?**

**Not yet. They said his creatinine was high last time, right?**

**Borderline.** He handed me my peak flow meter. **Here.**

I rolled onto my back and blew into it as hard as I could, then coughed while we waited for the readout. **How was the club?** I asked.

**Thrilling as always. Got a blow job from that guy who was there last time.**

**The one whose eyes are too close together?** I hadn't gone out in a while, but Brian gives me updates.

 **That's the one. Looks like a bird. Good mouth, though.** He looked down at the peak flow reading. **Yeah, Che Guevara, you're at one-eighty.**

“Oh.”

He sighed and looked at me. **I know you're distracted. I get it. But you have got to pay more attention. I mean it.**

“I know, I just...”

 **I know.** He nodded at my laptop. **Close that. Websites will be here in the morning.**

I shut my laptop and crawled between the covers while Brian fixed a nebulizer treatment for me. He went to take a quick shower, and I drank in medicine and looked up at the ceiling and tried to get my heart to slow down.

Brian slipped into bed beside me a little while later, his body warm against mine, his arms snaking their way around me.

 **You have to be careful,** he said, sleepy. **Need you okay.**

“Yeah,” I said. “So does he.”

**

I got up before Brian and Evan to make them breakfast, like I usually do: poached eggs and an English muffin for Evan, avocado toast for Brian. Evan used to get up before the rest of us to go out for a run, but he hadn't done that in a while. Brian thought he was depressed. I thought he probably just didn't feel well.

Brian came in when I was mostly done and pressed a kiss to my temple. **Did you sleep?** he said.

“I think so.”

**Going to take it easy today, right?**

“Yeah.”

He tipped my pills into my mouth and sipped coffee and leafed through the paper, and Evan came up a few minutes later, looking like he'd survived some kind of battle like he usually does in the mornings. He squeezed me around the waist from behind and kissed the back of my neck, and he and Brian had some conversation I couldn't make out with my back to them, but I could see Brian laugh a little, so that was nice.

 **I think I'm going to call my doctor today,** I said as they were eating, and I was picking at a few strawberries.

 **That sounds like an excellent idea,** Brian said lightly, and Evan nodded hard.

 **I want to get tested,** I said.

Brian frowned and slipped a piece of his toast onto my plate. **You got tested last month. Have you two even been having sex?**

Evan did kind of a so-so hand. **How are you going to have sex with him when he's breathing like that?** he said. **I'm afraid I'm going to kill him.**

 **I mean, I do it, but I'm heartless,** Brian said. **If he's gonna choke anyway, might as well be on my cock.**

 **Gentlemen,** I said.

Evan said, **Eh. I'm tired anyway. I'll let you choke him.**

**Okay, but if his technique gets stale I'm blaming you.**

**I'm not talking about HIV testing,** I said, big so they couldn't ignore me. **I want to get tested to see if I'm a match.**

Brian immediately laughed, and Evan just rolled his eyes and shook his head.

 **What?** I said. **Shouldn't we know?**

Brian looked across the table at Evan. **Do you want to take turns? Go back and forth?**

 **Sounds good,** Evan said.

 **You're allergic to anesthesia,** Brian said.

**Okay, there are alternatives—**

**There is a zero percent chance your lungs would hold up through surgery,** Evan said.

**That's an exaggeration.**

**They would literally never approve you with your medical history.**

**You need two kidneys for all the meds you take.**

**Plus your organs probably aren't in fantastic shape anyway from what you've put them through.**

**You would absolutely get an infection from getting cut open.**

**You also get pneumonia any time anyone _think_ about putting a tube down your throat.**

I crossed my arms and leaned back in my chair.

Evan reached over and pinched me. **You're sweet. But you're not giving me a kidney. Too sick.**

 **What are you going to do, then?** I said. **Have you even told your parents?**

**I'm not telling them.**

**Even Brian told his mom when he got cancer,** I said.

Brian laughed. **Oh no I did not. Debbie did.**

**Debbie told her?**

**Yep,** he fingerspelled. His phone flashed on the table and he picked it up and glanced at the screen and put it back down.

 **Yeah, that makes more sense,** I said.

 **How would I even explain it to them?** Evan said. **Hey, Mom and Dad, my kidneys are failing because I've had to take this super hardcore meds for this disease I haven't told you I have that you think all gay people get but really I got because I really like heroin!**

 **What's heroin like?** Brian asked.

**It's pretty fucking good, Brian.**

**They could be a match,** I said.

 **They'd never do it,** Evan said. **And I wouldn't want it. Would you want new lungs from your dad?**

**I'd take new lungs from Rasputin if he was offering.**

Evan looked at Brian.

 **Russian bad guy,** Brian said. **Very dead.** He nudged my plate. **Eat that, please.**

I pushed Brian's toast around my plate and thought about new lungs, and all the reasons I could never have them, and felt stupid and selfish for wanting them when mine worked pretty fine, stupid and selfish and awful for thinking about me at all. 

**He can stay healthy on dialysis for years,** Brian said. **Plenty of time to find someone.** He checked his watch. **We've got to go.** He leaned over and kissed my cheek. **Sleep today.**

**Yeah.**

**I'll see you at four?** Evan said. I go with him to dialysis on Mondays and Fridays. Wednesdays I have the baby so Brian does it.

**Yeah, I'll be there.**

Evan looked at me for a long few seconds, then he said, small, **It's too bad they don't have dialysis for lungs.**

I smiled and shook my head a little, just to clear it, just to do something. **You're not supposed to be worrying about me.**

**Bullshit. Let me do my job.**

I started coughing, and by the time I could say, **Let me do mine,** they were already out the door. So I said it to myself.

Let me do mine.

**

It was weird being in the house alone nowadays. Before I was used to it, since I was always alone during the week unless Jane was here or I was at Kinnetik, but now Evan worked half-days, mornings on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to allow for dialysis and afternoons on Tuesdays and Thursdays to allow for him to sleep in the days after he had all his blood removed and put back in, and I don't know. The house felt still when I was here and they weren't, and it was too much space to think. I wished I could get a cat or something. Ethan's might have almost put me into respiratory arrest, but besides that he was good company.

I cleaned up from breakfast and did a call with my agent and worked on some of the sketches I had around the house, since I hadn't made it out to the studio in a while. We get the place cleaned on Mondays and Thursdays so I have to get out then, but yesterday instead of going to the studio I'd just taken the train to the library and scrolled through websites on kidney donation.

I did the laundry—Brian doesn't understand why I won't just send it out, but it's such a waste of money, plus I like to cut out interaction with strangers, especially when I'm asking them to do something for me, whenever possible—and brought Evan's downstairs, even though he'd brought it up for me because they don't like me doing the stairs when they're not here...but they're overprotective. I wanted to change his sheets anyway, because he'd been getting chills and night sweats lately, but then...yeah, okay, going back up the stairs seemed hard, and I knew I wasn't breathing all that well, and Brian called when I was still down in the basement catching my breath. Shit. I took the stairs as quickly as I could and picked up once I was back on the couch, panting a little.

 **Why do you look like you just ran a marathon,** Brian asked, in that vaguely-interested way of his, half-watching me while he did something on his computer. He's always calling me when he's too busy to actually have a conversation. 

**Oh, I didn't tell you? New York Marathon was today.**

**Oh yeah? Funny, you'd think I would have heard about that from someone other than you.**

**Yeah, it's kind of an invitation only thing this year. I had to blow de Blasio to get in.**

**And how'd you do?**

“Fourth place.”

**Not your best.**

“Well, you know. I haven't been training.”

He finished up whatever he was doing and looked at me with a sigh. **Justin.**

“Hi.”

**Hello. You're supposed to be resting.**

“I am, see? Couch.” 

**You are so full of shit.**

“You like me, though.”

 **Apparently.** He leaned back in his chair. 

“Did you call for a reason, or just to berate me?”

He frowned a little. **Sorry, just to...**

 **Berate,** I fingerspelled.

**This is berating?**

“Yes. I feel berated.”

He rolled his eyes. **I wanted to see if you were meeting Evan at the center or picking him up here.**

“Meeting him there. Unless he needs me to come get him?”

**No, he's fine. Just was wondering if I'd get to blow you in the conference room. Oh well.**

“You can blow me tonight.”

He sighed theatrically. **If I have the time. Who knows.**

“God, the burdens you bear.”

**You have got to stop with these Rs. I'm supposed to be concentrating.**

“On what?”

**I don't know. Probably advertising or something.**

“Mmm.”

He tilted his head to the side a little, his mouth smarmy but his eyes warm. **Why are you fingerspelling with your left hand?**

 **Variety,** I fingerspelled. With my left.

**You know it's acting up because you haven't slept.**

“I sleep.”

**You have three hours before you have to meet Evan. Get some sleep.**

“Maybe.”

**You know he can do this on his own.**

“I know,” I said, and, in all likelihood, he would be doing this alone pretty soon. He...has issues with this sort of thing, asking people to go even the smallest amount out of their way for him, and the truth is that even though he's worn out after dialysis, the process itself is pretty un-scary, unless you're like Brian and can't do needles. He just sits in a comfy chair for three hours hooked up to the machine and watches TV or naps.

But I don't know. It's basically a hospital, and there's nothing I hate like being alone in hospitals. 

But I...you know. Can't say that to Brian.

Then again, since when did I ever have to say stuff to Brian? **You have to remember he's not you,** he said, gently.

“I know.”

**I had to learn it too. We're used to the yous of the world.**

**If I ever get dialysis you have to come with me every time.**

He bit back a smile. **I know, dear.**

**Not really.**

**I know that too.**

I sighed and coughed some. **I did the laundry.**

**How nice. Go to sleep.**

I laughed. And coughed. **You're insane.**

**And your hand is clenched up.**

“Have you seen Evan?”

**Yeah, he followed me to work.**

“Brian.”

**No, I haven't seen him since we got here.**

“Call him up or something.”

**I'm sure I would have heard if he'd died.**

“Ha.”

**Evan is fine. He's doing well and he's surrounded by people. You are alone and look like shit. Do I really have to spell this out?**

“There's nothing new going on with me. It's the same shit as always.”

**Your same shit as always is not exactly reassuring, Sunshine. Go lie down before dialysis.**

I chewed on my thumbnail, and after a minute he softened some.

**I know it's been bad.**

The nightmares. **Yeah.**

**You gonna tell your therapist?**

**I did.**

**Okay.** He watched me. **You want to keep your phone on and I'll watch you?**

I shook my head. **You can't do anything to wake me up.**

**Yeah. True.**

**I'll be fine,** I said.

**Call me when you wake up.**

**Okay.**

I fucked around the house a little while longer, putting laundry away, but the truth was I hadn't been sleeping well for a while now and I really was starting to feel kind of weird. I turned the ceiling fan on and lay on the bed and closed my eyes and tried to convince myself I was on the beach. 

I wasn't even aware of falling asleep, but I woke up half an hour later drenched in sweat with a very clear image of Evan's brain split open, and I curled up with my head down on the foot of the bed for a long, long time.

I took a shower, and then it was time to go.

**

I always look at the other people when I'm in waiting rooms. Sometimes it's nice. At the psychiatrist, I get to wonder what's wrong with everyone and speculate about their lives and look for clues on which of us is the most messed up, and that's kind of fun. The allergist is nice, because Brian and Evan are both annoyingly allergy-free, so there's something kind of comforting and communal about being in a room with a bunch of other red-eyed, sniffly people, and since I have, in Brian's expert opinions, the worst hay fever that's ever existed in the known universe, no one there can scare me too much. The pulmonologist...I don't love, because a lot of people there are on oxygen 24/7 and I know that that's...likely for me, eventually, and it's something I'd rather not think about, which of course means I think about it constantly. And the neurologist...yeah. There are some things it's better not to know. But I can't look away.

Most people getting dialysis look healthy. A few of them are bald and sickly, but most of them are like Evan, and you'd never know. The kids go to the pediatric unit, so Evan's always the youngest one here.

He won't still be on dialysis when he's the age of the people here, so this doesn't really tell us much about what the future looks like.

Sometimes it's better not to know, and I wished I knew if this was one of those times or not.

Evan was quiet today. He'd been in a pretty bad mood since all of this started, and it's not like I could blame him, and he wasn't taking it out on me and Brian any more than he could possibly help it. But he still didn't really seem like himself, and I...you know. Missed him.

He played with my fingers while he scrolled through playlists on his phone. He was wearing my old PIFA t-shirt. He said it made people take him seriously at work. 

**Did you see Jane today?** I tried. He loves Jane.

He just shook his head. 

**That new hire started yesterday, right?** I said. **How's she fitting in?**

He shook his head. **Next week.**

**Oh. Right.**

He sighed and put his phone down. **I'm sorry. I'm being the worst.**

**Shut up. You're fine.**

He leaned back in the arm chair, and I tried not to look at the blood going in and out of his arm. **I'm just tired.**

**I know.**

**Yeah, I can tell.** He watched me. **I'm supposed to take care of you.**

 **Oh yeah?** I said. **What's that like?**

He laughed a little and hid his face in his shoulder, and God, he's fucking breath taking. **Jesus. What would we do without Brian?**

**Literally die.**

**You're not wrong.**

**I will never understand how he doesn't get tired,** I said. 

Evan shrugged. **He loves this shit. He probably fed me poison to sabotage my kidneys because he was getting bored of you.**

**Compelling, if he ever cooked.**

**Hmm. Guess it was the HIV after all.**

**

Evan always gets so tired after dialysis. He fell asleep on my shoulder on the cab on the way home, and then he napped on the couch for a few hours while I worked on a few commissions I'd had come in lately, computer stuff, but my hand was giving me a lot of trouble and eventually I was just doing more harm than good on these pieces so I put them away and started on dinner. Brian got home a little after seven, and he woke Evan up an talked to him a little bit before he came over to the kitchen where I was layering noodles for lasagna.

He leaned his head against the refrigerator, watching me. “Hi,” he said to me, in English, like he does sometimes. Usually when my hands are full, like the fact that I can't sign means he doesn't think to at first either. It's funny.

“Hi. How was your day?”

 **Annoying. How was yours?** He came up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders, squeezing around my neck a little as I worked. **Breathe,** he signed on my chest, and I did, in and out, slowly.

“It was fine,” I said. “House looks nice, yeah?”

He nodded, moving back around where I could see him. He was still watching me kind of carefully.

“Dialysis went okay. Everything I've read says it's normal that he's this tired. It's supposed to get better.” 

He nodded towards the lasagna. **Can he eat that?**

“Yeah, I'm using the vegan cheese.”

**Um...yum?**

“It's not bad.” I watched him check his phone again. “Why are you glued to that thing lately? Are you cheating on me?”

 **Every chance I get,** he said, without missing a beat, and I laughed. **Just waiting for an email.** He drummed his fingers on my arm absentmindedly—he's always doing that, just touching my body in these small, non-sexual ways, like he doesn't quite realize it isn't a part of his, and I love it—and said, **You know, I'm pretty sure I could handle lasagna.**

“Brian, I've always told you you could do anything you set your mind to.”

**Thank you, Jennifer.**

I made a face.

 **Sit,** he said, a little more firmly. 

“I'm breathing okay.”

 **You don't look good, Justin,** he said. **Sit.**

I thought he was full of shit, frankly, but I don't know, it seemed too hard to argue, and I wanted to check on Evan anyway. I went back into the living room and sat with him on the couch—he was mostly awake, sort of, and looking pale and cuddly—and let Brian finish making dinner. I continued thinking that Brian was making something from nothing until about half an hour after we'd finished eating—the vegan stuff really isn't bad, and it's way lower in phosphorous—when we were all sprawled out in various places in the living room and I started to feel...off, like everything was tilting a little. Brian was in the armchair, working on something on his laptop, and Evan was stretched out beside me on the couch, dozing on and off but right now paying pretty close attention to the heist movie we were watching; subtitles are too fast for him, so he has to work hard to follow movies. He ends up lipreading a lot of them, which blows my mind. I can't even lipread in real life.

Anyway. I felt very off, and sometimes it just...comes on like that, and no amount of _Oh God please no_ does anything to stop it, and eventually you come to terms with that.

But God, Evan was so tired. He didn't need this.

So I made sure he wasn't looking at me and then said, “I'm gonna have a seizure.”

Brian didn't even look up from his laptop. **When? Almost done with this.** You learn how to fit this shit into your life.

“Maybe three minutes?”

**That's enough. Hang on.**

“Not a lot I can do about that.”

**So you say.**

My stomach twisted and and a metallic taste flooded my mouth. “Oh. Not three minutes.”

He closed the laptop and put it aside. **Okay. Get on the floor.**

“I don't want to do it in front of him.”

 **Floor. Now,** Brian said, and he started moving the coffee table away and throwing pillows on the floor, and Evan of course immediately knew what that meant and started helping. And that's the end of what I remember for a while.

The next thing I knew I was lying in bed, and the lights were off and we were under the covers and Brian was asleep, his arm slung over my waist. I had this horrible headache and I felt nauseous as shit and still super seizuery, and a couple second later my right side started shaking, from my shoulder down to my foot. Brian stirred a little but didn't wake up all the way, so I nudged him until he did. “Need you,” I said.

He dragged his hand over his eyes and sat up slowly, switching on the lamp next to me. **God, again?** he said, squinting in the light. He ran his hand carefully down my seizing side. **Sunshine. This is your third.**

“I don't remember.” It was hard to talk, like my teeth weren't the right size for my mouth.

**I know. Second one was bad.**

“Did I scare Evan?”

 **He's seen you have plenty of seizures, he knows the drill.** He sighed a little as I finally stopped shaking. **This is a lot, though, buddy.**

“I don't feel right.”

 **Yeah, I can't imagine you would.** For someone who's never had a seizure, Brian's always been really understanding of how hard they are to weather out neurologically. Even the ones that don't look like all that much feel fucking awful, like every neuron in your brain is crying.

He tugged me into him gently and encouraged me to curl up on him, and I remember thinking that I still felt charged, electric, not just wiped out and finished like I usually do after a seizure, and sure enough time passed in some sort of half-conscious blur and at some point, still the middle of the night, Brian was trying to get me to look at him.

 **Hey. Are you awake?** He was crouched down on the floor next to the bed, his hand on my shoulder, and he looked kind of scared. Just kind of, but he doesn't usually get scared.

“I think so.” I took a shaky breath in. “Oh God.”

 **I know.** He tucked his hand around my ear. **I know. That's three this hour, little one. They're not stopping. I need to give you a shot, okay?**

It's not that I mind getting shots that much—I mean, I don't love it, but you get used to them—but the emergency shot for seizures is this huge dose of Klonopin, because I'm allergic to most of the other first-line treatments, and it makes me completely useless for ages. I can't think or move or stay awake, I'm just...useless.

But constant seizures like this are not only incredibly un-fun, they also put you at risk for brain damage, and Brian will be the first one to tell you I can't afford any more of that. And with how much he needs needles, if he says he's going to give me a shot, it means I fucking need a shot.

 **Okay,** I signed, and he kissed my cheek very softly and got up. The way healthy people can get off the floor without using their hands will never cease to amaze me, and for some reason that was what I focused on, really hard. I'm so weird after seizures. “How do you do that?” I said to Brian when he got back from the bathroom and sat on the bed next to me.

 **How do I what?** He sat me up carefully, propping me up against him. **There we go. Okay.** He swabbed the top of my shoulder with an alcohol wipe. **No infections for you.**

“How do you do...the thing.”

**I don't know. Practice.**

“Oh. Okay.”

He pulled the cap off the syringe with his teeth. **Okay, ready?** he signed with his left hand.

I nodded, and he pushed the needle neatly into my shoulder. I pulled in a breath, and he kissed my cheek. 

**Done,** he said.

**How long does it take?**

**About an hour.**

“I'm gonna have another one before then.”

 **I know. Come here.** He pulled me carefully into his arms. **I'll stay up. You sleep.**

“Bad dreams,” I said. “Seizure dreams.”

**Those aren't dreams.**

“Oh.”

He rubbed his hand in circles on my chest. **I told you you were going to get sick, you know? You have to sleep.**

“I can't.” I pulled in a breath. “It's really bad. I see things and I can't move.”

He kept rubbing. **Shot will help with that, too.**

**Can we have sex?**

**No, too sick.**

“Okay.” 

He squeezed my arm. **Trying to relax?**

“Yeah.”

**Other ways to do that. Come here.**

He got me on my stomach and got some lotion on me, the nice hypoallergenic stuff, and pushed his thumbs into the muscles on my back and neck for a long time. I hadn't realized how much I hurt until he started, and I got a little panicked when he touched the really knotted ones, because I just felt so fucking...exposed, I don't know, and I know that's stupid because I mean, it's _Brian,_ but I don't know, I just felt really vulnerable and fragile and it's not a way I like feeling. He got it, though, without me having to say anything, and he was so patient, letting me take my time to relax, unclench, breathe.

I was vaguely aware of another seizure soon after that, but really it's a blur for a while. I have very faint memories of Brian stirring me awake to drink some water and take my meds a few times and helping me to the bathroom at one point, but I was so, so completely out of it from the shot. I slept like the dead for ages, and eventually I would start waking up for maybe thirty seconds, a minute at once, long enough to look around the room and sort of halfway consider getting up, but finally I woke up and it didn't seem completely impossible. I tipped onto my feet and stretched, feeling like I'd been hit my a goddamn truck, and padded out into the living room. It was dark outside, but the lights were still on in the living room, and Brian was there, doing sit-ups on the floor while he watched something on TV.

“Brian,” I said.

He startled and stood up, smiling a little. **It lives.**

“Possibly. What day is it?”

**Still Saturday.**

That was still too hard to work out. “How long was I asleep?”

**Not that long. Sixteen hours.**

**Oh, that's not so bad.** I've been known to knock out for two days after one of those shots.

He came over and gave me a hug. **That was scary,** he said. 

**How many was it total?**

**Seven.**

“Christ.”

He nodded and kissed my forehead. **Most of them pretty bad. I was fucking sure I must have forgotten your meds, but I checked the timers. You were just that sleep deprived.**

“Making up for it now, I guess.”

**Should try to eat something before you crash again.**

I nodded and yawned. “I'm starving.”

**Good.**

I followed him into the kitchen and sat down at the counter, resting my chin in my hand. “Where's Evan?”

**Sleeping, it's pretty late. He came in and said goodnight to you before he went to bed.**

“I don't remember.”

**Well, you were Deaf and asleep.**

**It's true.**

He made me a sandwich with grape jam and sunflower seed butter—it's like peanut butter, presumably, but without the anaphylactic shock—and cleaned up the kitchen while I ate. He was quiet, not in a way that seemed bad, but I still felt so fucking uneasy. Something didn't feel right.

He checked his phone again.

“Are you okay?” I asked him.

He looked at me. **Yeah, I'm good. Been weird not having you around.**

“Nice to get a break once in a while, I'm sure,” I said, smiling at him, and he smiled back and came and sat across from me.

 **Your eyes are having trouble focusing,** he said.

I laughed. “I know. I'm so fucking tired.” I sighed. “It feels like I'm missing something.”

**That's just the drugs. Everything's okay.**

“Are you mad at me? For not sleeping?”

He took a bite of my sandwich and shook his head thoughtfully. **Not mad. It's frustrating that...I told you you were going to make yourself sick, I saw it coming, and you did it anyway. That's frustrating.**

“I know.”

 **You don't have to torture yourself to prove that you care about him,** he said. **No one's measuring whether or not you give a shit by how fucked up this all makes you. Trust me on that one.**

“That's not what I'm doing,” I said, and he shrugged like he didn't believe me. “It's not,” I insisted.

 **We've just got to get you to the point where you can have a sick partner without having to martyr yourself out about it,** he said. **You'll get there.**

“I don't want to talk about this anymore.”

He sighed. **Okay.**

And I swear, even though I'd just said I didn't want to talk about it, I was going to try to explain it to Brian, I really was, but fuck if instead I didn't just start bawling. It was too much, the drugs and the seizures and the fucking enormity of all of this, and I was so tired and felt so goddamn fucking _wretched_ and I hadn't even been awake for ten minutes and I still felt like I was messing everything up.

Brian rolled his eyes and said, **Oh, Lord, come here,** and he came over to my side of the counter and held me for awhile. I was way too fucking tired for this, and it didn't take much crying before I was seriously lightheaded and this close to just falling asleep mid-sob. Brian took me back to bed and fucked me a little to calm me down, and I went to sleep with him inside me, my hands twisted up in his shirt.

I was useless the whole rest of the weekend. I got up a few times to pee and Brain forced a protein shake down my throat at one point, but for the most I was just sacked out completely. Every time I woke up I felt nauseous and confused and I'd end up falling back asleep in a matter of a few minutes. At some point Brian woke me up and gave me meds and told me he was going to work and that I should call him if I woke up, and for some reason that was really confusing so I just went back to sleep. It was evening by the time I opened my eyes again, and I felt more alert but also really shitty and shivery, and I wandered out into the living room to see if anyone was home who could fix me. 

Brian was there alone again, sitting in the kitchen with a rocks glass, and I immediately felt that ball in my stomach that I get whenever I realize something's wrong with Brian. 

“What happened?” I said.

He jumped. **Jesus.**

“Brian?”

He shook his head, then pinched the bridge of his nose, drained his glass, and filled it again. **Come here,** he said, and when I got close enough he held out his phone.

It took a while for me to piece together what I was looking at. It was an email telling Brian they were sorry, but his test results were in and he was not a suitable kidney match for Evan.

I set the phone down. “Brian.”

He drank.

“You got tested?”

He shrugged. **Of course.**

“You were going to have surgery? You don't even like shots.”

He looked at me like I was crazy. **Nobody _likes_ shots,** he said.

**Okay, but—**

**I'm O negative, I thought...** He set his glass down and looked away from me. **Damn it,** he said, and he pinched the bridge of his nose again and oh. Oh.

I had known that Brian loved Evan, of course I did, but I don't know that I believed that I knew it until that minute.

I pulled up a chair next to him and kneeled on it so we were the same height.

He pushed the heels of his hand into his eyes, sniffed hard, and then turned to me. **Why are you up, do you need something?**

I shook my head, because I honestly had no memory of needing anything anymore—and that's what Brian doesn't get, that's what I can't convince anyone isn't some romantic hyperbole, it's not being self-sacrificing and it's not trying to score martyr points, it's my fucking brain and it _doesn't remember_ when they are crying and that is not sweet and innocent when it gives you seven seizures that they have to hold you through—and kissed him, both his cheeks, all over his face, over and over. He resisted for half of a second and then leaned into me, resting his forehead against my temple and holding onto my waist. I kept going, working my lips down his neck, thanking, comforting, and God, in that moment I would have given everything I've ever had to honor Brian Kinney, burned my whole life like a sacrifice. In that moment I was put on this fucking earth to draw attention to this man, to show everyone that inside of his bullshit is this person, _this person_ who I of course would not actually show, never. I hold him safely and secretly because if anyone fucking hurts him I will burn the fucking world, burn it all like a sacrifice because you don't deserve this goodness, nobody does. Not this much. Not what Brian has to give.

Let them ignore it. Let them not see him. Keep your greedy hands away.

Keep him fucking safe so help me God. 

We kept kissing, grabbing at each other, and he stood up and brought me with him, my legs around his waist, and carried me to the shower. He fucked me roughly, desperately, my back against the glass and my hands in his hair, and I felt something I hadn't in God, so fucking long: that maybe I was actually doing one thing right.

And then it was two hours later and I bolted up from some sort of three-quarters awake state. 

Brian, less than three quarters awake, reached out and tried to pull me back down. **Shh. It's okay. Back to sleep.**

“I'm not having a nightmare, I...it's Monday.”

He stretched, dragging his hand across his eyes, and looked at his watch. **It's two AM, so no, it's Tuesday. Now that that's settled, can we go back to sleep.**

“No, I...fuck. _Shit._ Brian, I didn't take Evan to dialysis. I slept through dialysis.”

He didn't get it. **So...?**

**So did he go?? Did he miss it?**

**Of course he didn't miss it, come on.**

**Did he go by himself? He's not ready, he still gets scared, he—**

**Justin. He didn't go by himself. I took a half day and went with him. Everything's fine. Now, I just got laid for the first time in four days, this is the first time in God knows how long that your breathing hasn't kept me up, can we please, please, _please,_ go back to sleep.**

I got up out of bed, and Brian sighed and turned on the light.

**Justin.**

**Don't. I want to fucking hurt myself right now, okay? Don't tell me to just go to sleep.**

He watched me. **Okay. Come where I can reach you.**

I clenched my fists and crawled back on the bed. He put his hand around my elbow for a second, like he was checking if I was there, then took a deep breath. **Okay. Why is this a problem? You were sick. I covered for you. Evan is fine.**

“It's my job,” I said. “I'm supposed to do it.”

 **But you don't have to,** Brian said. **That's the beauty of this whole polyamory thing.**

“What if someone told you you didn't _have to_ take care of me? And they'd do it?”

He looked away for a second, and even as fucked up as I was I knew he did not want me to see what hearing that would feel like to him.

There are some things it's better not to know, and I'm pretty sure the real overwhelming amount that Brian loves me and what that does to him is probably one of them. I don't know how to live with myself for what I do to him, sometimes.

“You would be mad,” I said softly.

He swallowed and looked back at me. **I...would be mad, yes.**

I let him hold onto my wrists for a minute.

 **I'm not just anyone, though,** he said after a while. **It's not like I'm some stranger swooping in and taking him away from you.**

“I know. I'm not talking about not letting you do anything, I just...I want to do _some_ and I'm just fucking it up and over and over again. I'm not here for him. I'm not present. I'm so fucking bogged down in my own shit.”

**You _have_ to be, Justin. Look what fucking happened to you this weekend because you didn't sleep.**

“That's my point!” I said. “There's something fucking wrong with me, I can't—”

**Yes, it's called epilepsy.**

“Not _that,_ ” I said. “I can't...I can't take care of people.” I was breathing fast but I couldn't stop. Brian adjusted his fingers on my wrist, and I knew he was trying to be casual about checking my pulse, which was honestly valid but didn't do a lot to make me feel like someone who wasn't a fucking attention-stealing drama queen. “You knew I was awful at this. Before I was even fucking like this, you knew. You didn't even tell me when you got sick.”

He stared at me blankly. **That had nothing to do with you, what?**

“Clearly people can sense that I can't deal with it. That I'm going to make it all about me.”

**Are we...are we in the same reality? Sunshine, we're _trying_ to make it about you. We would fucking love a minute to make this about you. You're the one who _won't_ do it.**

“Because I don't care!” I said. “I just...I do not fucking care. And it's not some kind of martyr thing where I secretly want everyone to notice how fucking self-sacrificing I am and then...I don't know, chastise themselves for ignoring me and shower me in attention and tell me how brave and selfless I've been. I know that's what people think.”

**Nobody thinks that.**

“I would think that.”

He shrugged. **Of somebody else, maybe. We know you. That isn't you.**

I sucked in a breath as carefully as I could, but it made me start coughing anyway. Brian sighed and pulled me over to my side of the bed, and a minute later the oxygen mask was in my hand. I breathed from it for a while.

 **Better?** he asked.

I cleared my throat and swallowed. “Yeah.”

**Okay.**

“Do you know...” I started, but I lost my breath, gave up, and put the mask back on. **Do you know how frustrating it is to not be well right now? How fucking bored I am by own shit and the fact that I still have to deal with it? Going through the motions like any of it has any goddamn significance to me, I...I'm not trying to sacrifice because I'm some fucking hero or whatever, I just don't _care._ And I don't know if this is some brain damage thing where I can't think about two things at once or...I don't know, but I can't bring myself to be at all interested in the same old shit that's going on with me. And I still have to be. I don't get to just turn this off. And that's fucking frustrating as shit.**

Brian just watched me and nodded.

**I need to not feel terrible right now so that I can take care of him. And I know that's impossible and I know there's nothing you can do but I would really, really like if you would make me well for a while. I don't want anyone else to take care of him. I want to do it.**

He kissed my forehead. **I know.**

 **Can you do it for me for a little bit?** I said, small.

“What, take care of him?”

I shook my head.

He quirked up the side of his mouth. **Be sick?**

I sighed and coughed a little. “Yeah.”

He smiled and gave my cheek a quick nuzzle. **You know I would.**

“Yeah, I know.” I had to lighten the mood a little. **You'd be fucking annoying as shit, though.**

**Without a doubt.**

I decompressed for a minute, and Brian squeezed my knees eventually and said, **Here's the thing. Do you think I wake up every day enthused about epilepsy and lung scarring? These weren't my majors in college, wheezy. I don't have some inherent fascination with this shit. Of course you don't think it's interesting. Of course you think it's boring and exhausting. It _is._ You feel like total shit every day. How long is that supposed to be a novel experience?**

I shrugged.

 **But you are not boring and exhausting,** Brian said. **You are interesting.**

I watched him.

**So we need to take care of you, okay?**

“Maybe,” I said petulantly, and he laughed and tugged me close to him.

 **Pretty soon all this kidney failure shit, that's going to be boring too,** he said. **It's going to start to feel like real life. And you're still going to give a shit because it's Evan, even if dialysis starts to feel like just the tiresome, nine hour a week slog it is.**

I rested my cheek against him.

 **And you are still going to be here,** Brian said. **With this brain, and these lungs.**

“I just want to be well. Just for a little while.”

 **Justin, I know,** he said, and God, the pain in that. I had to stop.

I played with his fingers for a little and said, **Do you get used to being worried?**

**Yeah, you do. Like you got used to being sick.**

**But being sick is really bad right now.**

**Yeah,** he said. **Sometimes it's really bad.**

I squished into him, and he was too tired to even really complain when took his arm and fit it around me. He rubbed up and down my arm, slowing gradually until I thought he'd fallen asleep.

But finally he said, **This is who you are now,** signing on my chest. **This is who you've been for a long time.**

I took a slow breath in.

 **This is who he wants,** Brian said. **This is how he loves you.**

I stayed perfectly skill, scared to speak, scared to move.

 **He loves you so much,** Brian said, as his eyes closed.

**

He was already gone when I woke up the next morning. I hadn't even felt him get up! That shot was some powerful shit, but I felt like it was finally working its way out of me.

There was a note on the nightstand next to me, something about how he woke me up to give me my meds but I probably didn't remember—true—and he was going to be a disaster in his meeting today, thank you very much, and could I please try to schedule my next breakdown for normal business hours? There was also what I believe was supposed to be a pornographic sketch, which was poorly drawn but still appreciated. 

It was a Tuesday morning, which meant Evan would still be home, resting after dialysis. God, when was the last time I'd even seen him?

He was there when I went out to the living room, on the couch under my favorite blanket. He smiled and held his arms out to me, and I held him for a long time. We kissed and fooled around and finally looked at each other for a while.

 **I'm sorry,** I said to him.

**For what?**

**Disappearing,** I said.

**You were sort of comatose.**

**Not that. Just...before that.**

He nodded like he got it, then said, **Just be here with me. That's it.**

**I know, but...**

**Be sick with me,** he insisted. **That's it.**

I took a deep breath and felt it scrape in my lungs.

 **Okay,** I said. **I think I can do that.**


End file.
